[nycfem]

I have had some amazing times at Michfest but never went back after the summer I witnessed the transwomen who refused to follow "don't ask, don't tell" removed by security in tears. These were lesbians who had gone to much more trouble than I ever had to be women and to be lesbians and they were forced to sleep outside the entrance in a sad community of tents and heartache of being left out. I was in college at that time, and it left a big impression on me seeing these lesbians who had often had to give up their jobs, their families, and their sense of being accepted anywhere describing in tears how this is what their lives had come to. Michfest stands firm in not accepting trans women who will not pretend not to be trans (don't ask/don't tell), and that's why I think of Nazi, Germany when I think of Michfest.